Top Five: Boston

Boston was such a whirlwind trip and we did so much that I thought it would be hard (and really long) to write a full recap, so I decided to do a top five list instead!

5. The food!

I don’t think I ate anything on this trip that blew me away, but cannolis from Mike’s always hit the spot (I may have gone there twice), I also had a pretty incredible fresh mozzarella grilled cheese and lobster bisque soup from Anthem and the bite of my dad’s clam chowder soup was quite tasty.

4. Being tourists

It wasn’t my first trip to Boston, but it was the first trip for some people in our group so it was fun to do some new sight-seeing and some that we’ve done before.

Of COURSE we went to Fenway!

3. Meet-ups galore!

It all started when our flight to ATL was canceled (on our way to the airport at 4 a.m.) and we got put on a different flight that connected in Chicago. We ended up on the same flight as Coach, Chanthana and Angela! It was fun to finally meet in person. Then, when I ran into them again a few days later, I finally got to meet Jenny!

On Sunday night I navigated (OK, Uber navigated) my way out to Winchester for a fun Oiselle team meetup. Runner parties are awesome because Nuun is one of the offered beverages and you never run out of things to talk about. It was great to see Tracy again and meet other Oiselle team birds! And even though I had to leave early and didn’t get to chat with her, it’s always pretty cool when Kara Goucher shows up to a party you’re at.

2. Alllll of the love

In total, and not counting myself, 12 people made the trip to Boston to support Jesse and just thinking about that alone makes me tear up.

 

1. The marathon

I think this goes without saying, but marathon day was pretty magical. Seeing the elites fly by was pretty awesome:

But seeing my husband run by, looking SO strong, was the #1 moment of the entire trip. So proud of him!

I can’t wait to go back!

—

Also, congratulations to Mel for winning the Bellabeat giveaway! Thanks to everyone who entered.

2013 Grandma’s Marathon: spectating recap

I woke up at my sister-in-law’s around 4:30 a.m., ate a Picky Bar and then drove J and his brother-in-law to the shuttle in Proctor to take them to the Grandma’s start line. Once I dropped them off at the shuttle I headed up to St. Scholastica where my friend, KK, was staying.

(We had decided, the night before, that we weren’t going to attempt to bike the course as we had originally planned. Quite a few of the locals had advised against it — especially with my road bike and we didn’t want to risk not seeing our boys at all so we decided we’d shoot for seeing them during the second half of the course.)

It was ridiculously foggy when we headed out for a run which made it hard to see where we were going. This made things pretty interesting considering neither of us were familiar with the area and ended up having a very hilly run.

After our run we quickly showered at the dorms and then headed to as close to Canal Park as we could to get a good parking spot for after the race. KK and I then made the 2+ mile walk (all uphill, NBD) to meet up with her bf’s support crew and get some food at Sara’s Table. Right after we ordered (KK and I split a greek omelet and a specialty pancake stuffed with blueberries and homemade granola) I got another update on J’s progress and realized we’d have to book it to make sure I didn’t miss him at the mile marker I wanted to see him at! So I don’t have any photos of our beautiful (and I think it was delicious) breakfast. I definitely want to go back to Sara’s Table sometime.

(I’m so happy that J upgraded to RunKeeper Elite. I was able to live track him throughout the entire race, so I knew where he was the whole time.)

We shoveled the food in and then KK’s boyfriend’s life-saving crew dropped us off near Lake and Superior (right between mile 24-25) and waited for J run by. We had our cameras ready (even though by this point, they were getting rained on) and I was getting pretty emotional just thinking about how close he was to accomplishing his goal. His BQ time was well within reach, as long as nothing horrible happened during the last three-ish miles.

Finally, we saw him coming towards us and to my relief, he looked amazing! So strong and just FLYING. KK and I started  jumping up and down, screaming his name and snapping as many photos as we could.

Here he comes..

 

He sees us!

Then, we sprinted to get to mile 26 to see him again.

https://vine.co/v/hutrM00pgqM/embed/postcard//platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js

After that KK headed back to cheer her bf on and I headed to meet up with J and the family at the finish line.

So much fun.

J’s final time: 3:04:06. Time needed to qualify for Boston: 3:10. (Since it’s going to be so difficult to get in for 2014, J was shooting for a 3:05 to increase his chances of being able to register.)

After reuniting with J, we headed back to the finish to see Tim, our brother-in-law cross the finish line in 3:34:06 — AMAZING! Tim has run Grandma’s over a dozen times — and this was a PR for him!

The rest of the day included napping, eating and then we went to a party that evening in Cloquet, where I swear all of the attendees ran the race that day. Was pretty fun going to a party that only runners attend 🙂

So what’s next for my husband, besides hopefully Boston 2014? He’s also running TCM with me (well, not with me) so after taking a few weeks off, he’ll be back at it, training for another marathon!

Boston.

I’m in complete disbelief over what happened today in Boston. I’m horrified but so thankful that everyone I knew that was in Boston is safe. I really have no words so I will leave you with this:

Bostons for Boston.

Be kind to one another.

Photo credit to the lovely Kate and one of my favorite pooches in the whole world, Waldo.